Topic: Should Berkshire County DA David Capeless enforce State drug laws?
From The Berkshire Eagle (Saturday, April 9, 2005):
"DA, citizens confer -- Prosecution of youths is topic"
Please read the above article, then post your feedback here:
"DA, citizens confer -- Prosecution of youths is topic"
Please read the above article, then post your feedback here:
posted by G.M.Heller at Tuesday, April 12, 2005
16 Comments:
Hell YES!
I have been reading the ongoing series of letters to the editor regarding the Great Barrington drug arrests and am struck by the hostility and anger.
Most of those who oppose an alternative sentence for the young people accused of selling marijuana have reduced the argument to a class war. Those individuals who would like District Attorney Capeless to pursue charges that require mandatory sentencing appear to be angry with the residents of Great Barrington. Angry because they live in a lovely town, angry because there is an assumption that everyone in Great Barrington is privileged, rich, and therefore deserves nothing more than the harshest of punishment. Apparently working hard, doing well and speaking up on issues that involve yourself, your friends or your family are values to be ridiculed.
Snide comments such as "sushi eating'' residents, or references to "who you are or how much money you have" don't present a coherent argument as to why mandatory sentencing is a sensible solution in these cases. Not one letter addresses the subject of why mandatory sentencing in this case is a productive, smart or reasonable solution.
I know one of the families involved and for all of those who are so convinced this is about "privileged" people, let me set the record straight: The parents work six days a week, have no savings to speak of, and have spent countless hours over the last six months raising awareness regarding the application of the school zone penalty. They hope to make a difference for these children and for all those who may find themselves in this situation in years to come.
For those serving mandatory sentences, I am dismayed that your rage at having received such punishment carries over into wishing the same fate befalls someone else. Wouldn't you have wanted someone to fight on your behalf? Why are you so angry that people are raising issues that address the very problem and worthlessness of why you are serving jail time? I think all of us agree the Great Barrington young people should be punished for breaking the law, however, the punishment should fit the crime.
Incarcerating young people for first and non-violent offenses goes against the recommendations of most experts in the fields of criminal justice, psychology and drug treatment. I choose to believe Mr. Capeless is more interested in innovative solutions that turn these young men and women into productive and good citizens. Pursuing felony charges with mandatory sentencing will do nothing but destroy their futures.
Vincent Lee (letters, April 15) asks where the "concerned citizens of Great Barrington" were during past years when "dozens of people with Pittsfield cases have gone to jail for the mandatory two years." I would ask him why he thinks it is the job of Great Barrington residents to act as the social conscience of Pittsfield and its suburbs. After all, Pittsfield and its surrounding towns have a sizable middle-class population, any of whose members have been at liberty over those years to raise objections to the application of the school-zone law to the city's residents. The fact that they couldn't be bothered to do that should not bar Great Barrington residents from raising concerns about the application of the law in their own community.
However, the recent attempts to inject class warfare into this issue and the restriction of the petition to a minority of the Great Barrington defendants divert attention from the fundamental injustice of the school-zone law in Massachusetts. As some earlier letter-writers have pointed out, when this law was passed it was touted as a way to prevent drug dealers from preying on schoolchildren on their way to and from school. However, because a radius of 1,000 feet is a much larger area than most people realize, and because the law applies whether or not school is in session, the law has actually become a means by which prosecutors can guarantee jail sentences for offenses that would not otherwise carry any jail time at all.
Furthermore, and this is the greatest injustice of all, although several recent letter writers have argued that if those charged didn't want to "do the time" they shouldn't have committed the alleged offenses in a school zone, there is actually no way that anyone in Massachusetts can tell whether a particular area is in a school zone or not. In Connecticut, as anyone who drives over the state line will know, towns and cities clearly mark their school zones with signs. The fact that no such signs are to be found anywhere in Massachusetts risks the suggestion that the use of the law in this state is intended less to protect schoolchildren from drug dealers than to ensure incarceration even for those convicted of relatively minor drug offenses.
This is the real point at issue here and if it takes "the sushi eaters of Barrington" (as Mr. Lee calls them) to bring it to our attention, perhaps Mr. Lee should feel grateful to them instead of belittling them.
After all, if a change in the school- zone law should ever come about as a result of the Great Barrington petition, defendants in Pittsfield will reap the benefits no less than defendants in Great Barrington and the rest of the state.
RE: the ongoing kerfuffle about the Mandatory sentencing law and Capless: The same broken educational system that produces street corner simpletons has produced the generation of ill-informed adults who favor a catch and release policy for drug dealers. To the anti-mandatory sentencing crowd I would suggest a refresher course in civics. Anyone who votes should know that District Attorney Capeless does not make law – he enforces the law. It is his sworn duty to do so, no matter how idiotic that law may be. He cannot cherry pick the ones he likes and practice selective justice in reaction to organized whining. Laws are made by the legislature; in this case one with too much time on its hands. The legislators should be held accountable through elections. (Interestingly, the 1989 Massachusetts' School Zone Anti-Drug law in question, signed by Gov. Dukakis, was passed by an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature, which I am willing to bet is the party affiliation of most of those who are railing against the law and Capeless.)
The trend toward selective justice and sentencing is bad policy. I think there should be equally serious penalties for selling illegal drugs anywhere, but that’s my opinion and it’s not the law. I will continue to vote for those legislators who reflect my views of what the law should be. For those who don’t like the law as it now stands, and who “feel” that drug dealing is not a public menace and merely a childish indiscretion that should be “punished” with community service, I suggest you do the same- it’s your right. You also must be willing to take the heat when the now civilized Taconic parking lot is reinfested with emboldened losers intimidating citizens and selling drugs.
And for the lady (deborah pierce) who is struck by the anger and hostility of those in favor of punishing criminals - I applaude her perceptiveness - your damn right we're angry - I don't want to see any more self-indulged punks sizing me up everytime I enter a public area to see a movie - and if it takes the wack on the head of a mandatory jail sentence to get them out of my face, so be it. Sorry if my desire for domestic tranquility offends you.
As yourself some of these questions:
Has the DA's office typically brought School Zone Drug Dealers to Trial in the past?
Answer- no, the dealers offer to cooperate and cut a deal.
Why not these dealers?
Because they have been emboldened and exploited by the so called concerned citizens, who just want to weaken the drug laws. We'll run ads, attack the DA and get you off...
Conclusion, the dealers should thank the CCAJ for landing them a two year stint.
Good work, once again to the moronic "stop the drug war" losers who have been at this for 30 years with no success.
GO CAPELESS!The good, law-abiding people of Berkshire County are behind you! We want safety. We don't want some drug-dealer defender looking out for our side. I predict you will get 90% of the vote, the rest will be from drug pushers and convicts.
OF COURSE HE SHOULD BE ENFORCING THE LAW, NO MATTER WHAT THE LAW MAY BE! LAWS ARE, YOU KNOW, LAWS! AND IF YOU ASK ME, THE MANDATORY MINIMUM SHOULD BE RAISED TO 10YRS AND THE AMOUNT OF POT SOLD NECESSARY TO ALLOW PROSECUTION SHOULD BE LOWERED TO .001 GRAMS!
....
Alright, I've calmed down. I apologize for the above portion totally in capital letters, but I just can't help myself from expressing to the best of my ability in any medium I am communicating in my ABSOLUTE lack of ANY MANNER WHATSOEVER of human compassion for people who break laws, regardless the severity of the offense.
As a patriotic, rule-oriented, law-abiding, and emotion-charged reactionary citizen of the U.S.of A. under ONE GOD and a resident of the community this issue is unfolding in, I am enraged that the question can even seriously be asked as to whether or not DEMOCRATICALLY elected District Attorney should be enforce LAWS. I mean, it's not exactly a novel idea that the D.A.'s role is to mechanically, ruthlessly, and without any employment of personal discretion hunt down every single law-breaker (ESP. THESE WILDLY DANGEROUS, VIOLENT, AND SCUMMY POT DEALERS) and pursue PUNITIVE JUSTICE to the fullest and harshest extent permitted by the written legislation--legislation, any kind of it, obviously being the only means by which human beings can understand what justice is, esp. when an outraged majority of citizens fueled by fear, anger, or hatred unite in their common intolerance and animalistic rage with thoughtless devotion to some tradition (be it religious, cultural, or political) and FUEL THE CAUSE OF JUSTICE by working to pass new laws that create the JUSTICE that didn't exist before but does thereafter.
It was obviously just such a righteous and principled mass that, while for a period marijuana was legal, at some point recognized for one simplistic reason or another that a NEW JUSTICE had to be created to, you know, DEFEND TRADITION, and make it RIGHT that an individual's consumption--AND ESP. TRADE--of this naturally occuring plant, cannabis, a GROSS, OBSCENE, AND COMPLETE VIOLATION OF EVERY SINGLE THING [a certain portion of the Ameican, and esp. Berkshire in this case, contingent of] HUMANITY [decided at some point in the past and during completely different historical circumstances (though I bet in this case caused by the global pandemic of death, murder, and savagery pot smoking was leading the world to then)] STANDS FOR!
And that's that! You know how it goes: "Do the crime, do the time..." As well as suffer every other consequence in life your criminal record you were serving to "correct" causes for you, like never getting a good job and being forced to get DEEPER involved in drug dealing as a result, then probably being sentenced to death once the NEW JUSTICE I know is going to be created will call for!
JUSTICE! AMERICA! ANHEDONIA! DAMN RIGHT I'M PROUD OF D.A. CAPELESS!
... oh yeah, AND ONE NATION UNDER A SINGLE GOD THAT'S FOR OUR COUNTRY ONLY, TOO!
Capeless is nothing more than a politically self serving person who could careless about Berkshire County.
He is all about the win and not justice.
Robin Litchfield
Tragedies of Justice
www.paullitchfield.com
Murder ignored in order to maintain a wrongful conviction
capeless is a republican @ heart(less) he doesn't live in his beloved pittsfield, he sends his kids to private school- not public and he acts and talks like a bush wannbe,. Same one line rehotic - no fact based evidence. Drug abuse is higher than ever in berk county and OD deaths are at a record #. He is closing lines of commun ication from the at risk population thru his overzealous and inneffective approach
It's interesting the number of people related to convicted child molesters on this site.
Its funny...When it was a young African American young man being sentenced to a mandatory minimum you hear nothing but as soon as it's young white American everyone is sssssoooooooo angry. Please, give me a break. African American men are always being racially profiled and no one says a word! I don't agree with mandatory minimums but I'm glad at lease it woke people up because this has been happening to the African American community for a long time now.
its not funny its sad- the african american community had a opportunity to join knight to fight to change the mandatory laws- there were several meetings - and sadly they remained silent-Mandatory minimums are wrong-white black green or blue. Someone should file a freedom of info request to see the racial disparity going on in Pitts..... There is nothing "even " about how this dA uses mandatory minimums to fill our jails/...
African Americans are the VICTIMS of these drug dealers. Wake up! We want drug dealers out of our neighborhoods and this DA is doing his part. Ask yourself what you are doing for the AA community that even comes close.
This A-hole is just like any other prosecuter. they all want to be in control of others. It makes him feel like a big man throwing people in jail for stupid laws. mandatory minimums are a big waste of millions of dollars. Circumstances are more important that mandatory minimums
Capeless is a hapless jerk. Isn't MA the state of the Union that had its senior law enforcement officials enforcing WITCHHUNTS?
What the heck do WASPY uptight people know about anything?
I laugh at conservatives. And I will not smoke Maryjane legal or illegal because I don't like it. I am not afraid of a leaf, but I am of white male conservatives. These men don't know their asses from their elbows.
An overwhelming number of teens experience their first use with drugs and alcohol during spring break. Asher founded Clean Break, as a community event that would provide a safe choice for high school and college students to enjoy their break in a sober environment. The first Clean Break 2009, was held in Nashville, Tenn., and featured music artists with a heart for student issues, and free pizza, sodas and ice cream for 200 teens from 78 different high schools. Clean Break 2010 built upon the success with 450 teens attending.
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